The Background of the Invention includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided herein is prior art, relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
A floor mat is utilized by a user for wiping dirt off of his/her footwear or feet. The floor mat is primarily used to reduce solid particulates which are attached to the bottom of the footwear. After wiping on the mat, the footwear has reduced dirt and assists in minimizing and avoiding slips, trips, and falls and also keeps the location clean and hygienic.
Generally, the floor mat is widely accepted for cleaning the underneath of footwear and adopted even in various sensitive locations, for example, Intensive Care Units (ICU), surgery wings, sterile areas of a pharmaceutical manufacturing unit, food packaging and manufacturing locations etc. The user wearing the footwear walks on roads, public toilets, malls, parks, and other open areas from where the footwear is more prone to nosocomial infections/microorganisms. People having these infections embedded in the footwear when they visit these sensitive locations, contaminate the floor and at times become a primary source of spreading serious diseases to other people. These infections/microorganisms can be dangerous. Also, this can be particularly dangerous as people travel from country to country carrying microorganisms that are not indigenous to the region to which they are going.
In order to overcome spreading of these infections, various means to prevent transmission have been used. One wisely used method is to take off the footwear at the entrance to such areas and put on a sanitary shoe cover. However, taking off your shoes, and/or putting on sanitary shoe covers and then putting your shoes back on again can be a cumbersome process, particularly in residential areas, and the footwear can still transmit infections.
The following references may be relevant to the claimed invention:
U.S. Pat. No. 4,765,039 to Rowlands et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,792,712 to Hori et al; U.S. Pat. No. 6,233,776 to Blum et al; U.S. Pat. No. 6,258,435 to Staal; U.S. Pat. No. 6,886,210 to Dean; U.S. Pat. No. 8,241,565 to Abdul; U.S. Pat. No. 8,631,533 to Gulian et al; U.S. Pat. No. 8,973,197 to Omidi; U.S. Pat. No. 9,101,260 to Aishwarya; U.S. Pat. No. 9,198,991 to Dombrowski et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 9,272,058 to Montgomery; U.S. Pat. No. 9,579,410 to Simmons et al.; US Publication 2010/0296970 to Trimarco et al.; US Publication 2012/0167325 to Omidi; US Publication 2016/0175896 to Montgomery; US Publication 2017/0000915 to Cottone; JP 3110425 U; JP 01313057 A; KR 20140065028; KR 20090022921; FR 2009581 A7; FR 2761255 A1; DE 202010004960 U1 and DE 2451429 A1.
Although various devices and systems have been proposed to sanitize footwear, for example with floor mats and disinfectants, they fail to disclose a device that has all of the elements and benefits of the device described and claimed herein.